


Milestones

by crack_the_shutters



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Brief Violence, M/M, Multi, eventual M/M pairings, more eventually to come I'm sure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:29:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crack_the_shutters/pseuds/crack_the_shutters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake Jensen knew going in that The Losers were a special type of team.  What he didn't expect was to fit in so well with them, even if it took plenty of posturing and arguing to get himself settled in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One: He Came In Like A Wrecking Ball

**Author's Note:**

> This is a (mostly I hope) short chaptered series on Jensen's first days and other milestones with the Losers. Each chapter will be tagged with any triggers for it and I love reviews, even concrit! (also to be noted, this is my first attempt at Losers fic, late to the fandom party woo)

Cougar had to bite back a grin.

He could already see the tick forming along Roque’s temple as their new tech continued on in his own world, oblivious to the danger his offkey warbling was putting him in.  Or else he was aware and simply didn’t give a fuck, and that thought was even more amusing to the sniper. 

He could have warned him, maybe he should have.  Roque’s reputation was well known around base but that reputation was nothing compared to the one that only the Losers knew about.  The one that had run off tech after tech, the one that usually ended up with Cougar sighing from his perch and Pooch yelling about crazy bastards with too goddamn many knives.

The sniper glanced at Clay’s door and noted that it was just as firmly shut as before, and there was no way he could hear their newest butchering pop song after pop song as he clattered away on his laptop.  Granted, the first thing he had done was walk in and stare in not-so-mute horror at the computers all of them were working with, let out a full body shudder and proceeded to tell Clay to either put in for some new equipment or get ready for him to start ripping shit apart to improve, well, _everything_ about _‘these archaic torture devices.  I bet they still connect on dial up, or do they connect at all?  Oh my god, please tell me they’re not still running DOS-‘_

That had been when Clay admitted defeat, gave them all a salute, shot the tech a look and beat a tactical retreat to his office. 

Cougar, for his part, hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even moved from his position in the far corner of the room where a beat up and possibly bloodstained chair.  Feet kicked up and crossed at the ankle, he had tipped his hat down far enough to keep most of his face from being seen, but he was still able to peer out and watch the happenings.  It was his usual position, since he rarely did paperwork after the last incident that, well, it was better to leave that alone. 

Pooch was dutifully working on filling out he and Cougar’s mission reports, headphones in and turned up loud enough that it could be heard across the room.  He still winced every so often when the tech reached a new high in his range, even topping the sharp falsetto that had led to Roque breaking a pen in his hand.

“New kid.”  Cougar’s eyes swept across the room to look at Roque, watching him carefully.  “Yo, _techie_ , you hear me?” 

Seeing as the tech wiggled in his seat and didn’t answer, it was reasonably safe to assume he hadn’t.  Roque wiped a hand over his face, letting out a heavy sigh of exasperation as he stood up and moved over to the tech and reached to tug out a headphone to get his attention.

“Hey, kid, I’m—“  Roque jumped at the hand suddenly on his wrist, closing tightly around it as the other continued to tickety-tack away at the keyboard, never faltering from the steady pace. 

“One: Don’t ever touch the headphones.  Two:  Don’t _ever_ touch the headphones.”  There was a tight smile that all of them, even Roque, knew all too well.  Unfortunately, Roque didn’t always care, or wanted to start a fight, so he pressed on anyway. 

“At least cut out that elementary school talent show shit you got goin’ here, people tryin’a work.”  Pooch was trying to work, Roque was probably doodling on his reports again, but he wasn’t going to change his point. 

“Yeah, I know.”  Techie shrugged, not yet releasing Roque’s hand as he turned to look directly at Cougar, eyes narrowing behind his ridiculous glasses.  “You probably should be more worried about him though, I mean, he hasn’t moved in like three hours and I know _technically_ neither have I, at least you can tell I’m still alive because of all the typing and singing and shit.” 

“Cougar’s fine, don’t worry about’im.  You oughta worry about yourself, white boy, we’re not here to be your audience, and I ain’t seen you accomplish shit yet in all the time you’ve been sitting there.”

“No I’m serious—“

“No, _I’m serious_.”  Roque’s grip tightened and Cougar’s lips thinned to a line as he watched the tension in their newest member’s body grow increasingly taut.  Roque might have been fooled by the computer geek part of him, but Cougar could see the corded muscle that might be a problem for their XO in the very near future. 

“Dude, I’m for real, I think he died.  I mean, did you know that people die all the time and aren’t even noticed?  There was an article not too long ago about this lady they found, she’d been dead like forty years, just died sitting down to eat dinner and watch some tv and her kids never checked up on her and no one found her until like a couple months ago.  You never know, his stress as a sniper might have gotten to him, it’s statistically—“

“I’m gonna _make_   you a statistic if you don’t shut the fuck up right now—“

“ _Roque stop threatening the kid, we need him and preferably without a knife hanging out of his side!_ ” Clay barked from his office, making even Pooch quirk a brow.  It was like the man had a sixth Roque sense and just knew when he was making a nuisance of himself. 

“I can handle myself, Sir, but your worry is appreciated, noted, and will be repaid with something extra special!” The tech turned a wicked grin to the closed door, from behind which a sharp snort sounded.

“Just don’t add any fuckin’ porn to anything, don’t end up with a knife in your ass and we’ll call it even, got that Jensen?”

“Got it, loud and clear.”  Tech— _Jensen_ —saluted cockily with his free hand before looking to Roque again.  “You heard him, I mean, we’re supposed to play nice.  Not like puppies and kittens nice but you don’t _really_ wanna stab me now, do you?”

“You’re damn right I wanna fuckin’ stab you.”  The XO snarled, and Cougar tensed, waiting for all Hell to break loose.

He didn’t have long to wait, moments actually, as one of Roque’s favorite knives came out with a flash and the long blade was headed towards Jensen’s groin.  The moment his muscles twitched to move though, a thing of beauty happened that he and Pooch would talk about within earshot of Roque any time he started to give Jensen a hard time.

The tension left Jensen’s muscles after he shoved the desk away from him enough to facilitate him kicking his chair over, knife firmly planted in the hard wood of the seat.  A long leg kicked up, ankle catching a startled Roque behind the neck before he brought it down again, pulling the XO with him as he stood up, grabbed the blade.

As Roque’s body hit the floor, the younger man grinned like a demon and sat on his stunned back, slamming the knife into the wood of the floor close enough to the XO’s head to skim off a few hairs from his stubble.

“You were saying?”

“ _There had better not be blood on my goddamn floor._ ”

“Clean as it was before I walked in, Sir!”  Jensen chirped— _chirped_ —happily before looking down at Roque.  “We cool?  Or at least you’re not gonna try to stab me again, right?  ‘cause that’s not cool, I mean, I know I’m the new guy and all and I have to earn my place and shit but stabbing isn’t really the way to warm someone’s heart and endears them to you.”

“We are so fuckin’ not cool.”  Roque groused as he pushed up, tossing Jensen to the side as his shock wore off.  “Mother fuckin’ white boys and their goddamn jujitsu moves, _bullshit_.”

“Pooch thinks it’s fucking hilarious.”

“Pooch gonna find himself on the side of the road with no phone to call his girl to pick him up.”  Roque shot the transportations officer a dark look.

“The Pooch has noted this, and is shutting up now.”

Relaxing after seeing just how well the tech – Jensen, he would call him now – had handled himself, Cougar continued to bite back a smile as the younger man moved everything back into the exact place it had been before, barring the new addition of notable knife gouges, and the offbeat, offkey renditions carried on.

Roque didn’t say another word, but if anyone noticed the appraising way he kept looking at Jensen, running his finger over the blade as he did so, they failed to mention it.

That, and the very, _very_ slight grin on their XO’s face.


	2. Day Two: Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his second day as part of The Losers, Jensen may have discovered one of the few things that they would kill someone for letting slip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I may be changing updates to every other day, just to give me time to have mild writers block and still get things up on schedule. But, thanks to everyone for the comments and kudos, I hope you like this chapter!

Jensen discovered the team cat by accident.

The accident happened when Jensen settled down in his chair to continue work on disassembling and rebuilding the team’s computers with what he had managed to filch from one of the tech rooms the night before.  He normally would have complained about having to sit so near a sunny window (glare and such, you know, a real pain to deal with while trying to resurrect ancient torture devices), but he had shrugged and ignored it, the heat beating down on his back a welcome feeling.

An hour into his machinations, about the same time he usually dropped into his trance like ‘I don’t need sleep for a week’ state, he heard a plaintive mewl at the window. 

“…did you do that?”  He turned to look at Cougar, who was in nearly the same position as the day before.  When no answer came, he shrugged and turned back around, picking up a solder iron and leaning back in.

_Mrow._

He paused.

That was definitely the sound of a cat.

Not a dead-in-the-corner Spanish cat, a living, breathing one.

Another shrug and he figured he’d ignore it again, since it was just a cat and it wasn’t anywhere near his precious computer parts. 

Even when it grew insistent, a hushed tapping on the window not too far from his head as the fluffy beast pawed at it, trying to get his attention, he managed to push the sound from his mind and neared the familiar trance state again.

“Aw shit, who forgot to leave the window open, it’s Tuesday!”  Roque’s exclamation as he walked through the door with arms full of drinks and junk food, “Yo, Clay, Fee’s out here and you forgot to open the window.”

A muffled curse came from the office, Clay throwing the door open to shoot a look at Cougar, “Cougar’s turn this week, not mine.”

“Who’s Fee?”  Jensen’s voice made them all freeze, including Pooch who was walking in with a sack from Petco. 

“…think we could kill’im before he leaked word around base?”

“Too messy.”

“Gag’im?”

“Not sure that’d work for long, Roque, have to take it off sometime.”

“Threaten him?”

“…Pooch has the right idea.”

“Guys, I’m literally _right here_ , I can hear _everything_ you’re saying.”  Jensen quirked a brow at them, baffled, missing the smile that curled Cougar’s lips as he listened to what was going on.

“I still think we should kill him.”

“Roque, we’re not killing anyone.  You’re just mad he managed to get the drop on you yesterday.”

Clay sighed, looking over at Jensen.  “Look—Kid, here’s the thing.”  He artfully ignored the two men hovering by the office door, glaring, “I – We – have a reputation around here, around everywhere really, and we can’t afford to lose that reputation.”

“Right.”  Jensen deadpanned, still not quite connecting the dots, “Because it’s such a good reputation.”

Roque twitched, lunging towards him slightly only to be stopped by Pooch who stepped between the two.  “Yeah, even though it’s the reputation we have, because it’s our reputation, and it lets us…do what we tend to do.  You know, like you and your tech skills, even though you leave a lot to be desired as far as…essentially every other part of you.”

Jensen could have been insulted, but he knew what Clay meant.  He really was hard to work with, not that he tried to be most of the time.  He shrugged, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.  “Yeah, okay—I’ll give you that.  But what does whatever a Fee is have to do with emasculating any of you and ruining your reputation.”

Hearing her name, the cat outside the window yowled loudly, standing on her hind legs to scratch at the glass, clearly unhappy that they were ignoring her and arguing among themselves instead.

“Fee is Phoenix, the cat you see behind you.”

“…You have a cat?”

“More like she has a bunch of humans.”  Pooch piped up, tired of the discussion and moving to the window to open it, admitting the brightly colored feline who promptly wound her way around his legs before running and jumping into Cougar’s lap, settling in until they had her food and water set up.

“I—wait—there’s a cat, something cute, small and fluffy, and Roque hasn’t tried to kill it?”  Jensen’s eyebrows could have disappeared into his hairline if he were anymore surprised.

Subtly, Cougar let out a snort as he rubbed the cat’s tummy while she curled up in his lap. 

“Amazingly, Roque is the one that found her.”  Clay admitted, dodging quickly as Roque lashed out at him to swat him upside the head.

“I did not!”

“Did too, look, we might as well explain if he’s sticking around anyway.”

Roque frowned, “Who says he’s sticking around?”

“I am.”  Jensen looked nonchalant, “I mean, you can try to bully me out of here but I’ll have you know I’m as stubborn as a mule, I’ll dig my feet in and then you’re kinda fucked because I don’t play well with bullies.”

“Alright _children_ , settle the fuck down.” Clay groused as he pressed a hand to Roque’s chest, pushing him back. “No one’s bullying anyone, everyone can play nice, for fuck’s sake.  We need a tech, he needs a team and he’s not any more annoying than any of you can be when you feel like it so behave and let me finish talking.”

Roque muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _you can sleep on the fuckin’ couch tonight_ , which Clay pointedly didn’t dignify with a response.

“For all his bluff and bluster, there’s one thing you should know about Roque if you want to work with him at all.  And that is if presented with an injured animal of any kind, he’s more likely to drop everything and get it patched up than anyone else here.”

Jensen looked skeptical at that, not that anyone could blame him after yesterday, and the rapport that Roque had with the brig.  The cat decided to help them out though, jumping away from Cougar and bounding over desks until she could launch herself up onto Roque’s broad shoulders and a hand came up to gently scratch her head.  A lesser man would have quaked under the intense glare from the Second in Command, but Jensen was too busy grinning.

“So…you’re saying he’s more like a giant teddy bear.”

“I wouldn’t go that far—“  Clay was cut off by the not so subtle flash of a camera phone taking a picture, “Kid, I’d delete that if I were you.”

“Oh no way.  I’m keeping this.  It’s for later, you know, whenever he tries to get pushy.  I can just pull it out and voila~”

“Clay, I’m gonna kill him.”

“No one is killing anyone.”  Clay rolled his eyes, “Look, you keep this secret and I’ll make sure you don’t die, how’s that sound?”

“Statistically impossible,” There was a beat of silence followed by an even wider grin, “But…I like living so I’ll take it.”

\----------

No one could blame Roque for throwing a paperweight in Jensen’s general direction later on, after they heard a private talking in hushed tones about the team’s hidden menagerie of exotic, dangerous beasts.  A menagerie that included a terrifying lioness named Phoenix that Jensen had narrowly escaped being eaten by when he was visiting their offbase house.


End file.
